Radio Tarifa takes its name from the town of Tarifa, which is on the Spanish peninsula closest to Morocco. The band is aptly named, since its sound represents exactly where the two cultures collide, as well as displays its external influences. The band’s core members hail from Spain (percussionist Fain Sanchez Duenas and vocalist Benjamin Escoriza) and France (wind musician Vincent Molino). The members’ combined experience and creativity makes for rich musical texture in Radio Tarifa’s sound. Duenas and Molino were in a band that specialized in music from the Middle Ages while Escoriza is a flamenco singer raised by Gypsies. The resulting album is an intensely creative venture that represents the sounds of what might have evolved had the Jews and Moors not been exiled from Spain in 1492 and had the Spanish been able to borrow from the sounds of the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, and the Middle Ages.

Experimental as Radio Tarifa’s combinations may be, Rumba Argelina sounds completely natural and organic, just like traditional music from a long lost culture. The title track is essentially a flamenco tune with a Middle Eastern pulse. Escoriza’s tense, vibrant flamenco vocals wind their way through a supporting melody played on the ney, an Arabic flute, and punctuated by the derbouka, a North African hand drum. His voice has a strong presence on the majority of the album, showing versatility as he adopts more traditionally North African intonations on songs like "Lamma Bada." Though the elements of "Lamma Bada" are similar to "Rumba Argelina" (vocals, percussion, and flute), the song is an interpretation of an Arabic classic and has much more North African flavor. The masterfully played derbouka is a focal point of the track and the melody’s undulating recessed beats sound more appropriate for a belly dance than a flamenco song.

"La Canal" is a perfect example of a song that embraces all the band members’ experience and exhibits seamless fusion across time. Always with the derbouka (in this case, unobtrusively keeping time), and Escoriza’s fierce vocals, Radio Tarifa adds a crumhorn (a loud Medieval wind instrument) to offset the deeper vocals with its insistent buzzing. The effect is one of jollity and celebration that crosses geographical and historical boundaries.